December 9, 2021
Happy Holidays to everyone! We are so amazed with how fast the school year is flying by! We will be starting our Holiday Break next Friday, closing the offices on December 17th, and will be returning to work on Monday, January 3, 2022. Before we know it, Mardi Gras will be here!
Some exciting things have been happening including the professional development that we recently wrote about to you. If you missed it, in 2022, Todd will be a member of IECA https://www.iecaonline.com/ and we will begin school consulting for students with mild/ moderate learning differences specializing in prep and boarding schools. I am looking forward to attending IECA's 2022 Summer Institute, and Todd and I will be accepting the invitation of some prep schools in New England to visit in the spring. I too have further advanced to a Professional Member of The Association of Educational Therapists after over 14 years of direct service hours and supervision. Katie Hecker is going to become an Associate Member of AET in January. For more information on AET please refer to the website: https://www.aetonline.org/
In even more exciting news, after receiving an extremely generous grant to support our sponsorship program from The Goldring Family Foundation in August, we are thrilled to announce that we have recently begun partnering with Son of a Saint to locate students in need of academic intervention to whom we are providing educational therapy. We have selected two students who show promise our services will build their confidence and skills as learners and we have begun our work with them. We think this partnership is ideal with the holistic approach that Son of a Saint provides for boys. We are especially excited that these boys are so incredibly eager to learn! For more information about Son of a Saint, please check out their website: https://sonofasaint.org/
In regards to billing, we want to thank everyone for your patience and paticipation when it comes to helping us transition to our new platform, Simple Practice. I can't tell you how much easier and happier it has made my life as billing became something I dreaded each month. Now, I have more time to focus on your children and learning new skills to support them. That is the work that I truly enjoy! I hope that you all get email reminders about sessions. If you do not, please do let me know as I am still learning how to navigate the system.
Lastly, when we meet with parents to discuss intervention for our students they often ask, will you use Orton Gillingham? Barton? Wilson? Lindamood Bell? Slingerland? Read Naturally? Handwriting Without Tears? Lexia? What writing program do you use? The answers vary depending on your child's profile and intervention needed. There are many interventions we use and train in. Learning new methods is a deep interest and responsibility that we have. These trainings and materials are costly we have to decide what to invest in carefully. The most important thing we want to know is if the program is research or evidence based. If you are not sure what that exactly means, here is a clip below of Dr. Sally Shaywitz defining the difference. While evidence based programs are mostly what we have invested in, we use a few research based programs as they have been used over a long period and are reputable. We are more than happy to talk with you in more detail or send you information about the programs we use with your children and why.
We hope you have a wonderful holiday season! We will be spending time with our parents and children in Northern California and we will come back refreshed and excited to get back to work with our students in 2022. The new year is looking like it is going to be a great one for us all!